Hugo quirked an ironic brow. “Rumour does me too much honour. It was a small, unarmed Chinaman.”
“A Chinaman! Good Heavens! I hadn’t heard that! What on earth would a Chinaman be doing breaking into the Pennington house—?”
“Black pearls are highly prized in the far east, I have heard.”
“Of course, the famous Pennington Black Pearls! Poor Eliza is just devastated, you know, and her husband is furious! An heirloom. Worth an absolute king’s ransom!”
Hugo nodded. “Yes, I was unable to save them, unfortunately.”
“Oh, but think how much worse it could have been if you hadn’t disturbed the blackguard!”
Hugo shrugged, but said nothing. He had already explained to Pennington that he felt the thief had already completed his depredations when Hugo arrived.
“Oh, you are so wonderfully modest, dear Hugo. I am so glad you are here—you can protect me tonight, in case any nasty Oriental thieves break in.” Lady Fanny giggled girlishly and rapped his arm with her fan again.
Hugo bowed again, then took his leave of Lady Fanny and made a leisurely way across the crowded room to where a lady had been glaring at him since his arrival.
“What the devil has brought you to London just now, Hugo?” said Lady Norwood, leading him into a small anteroom.
Hugo observed her coolly. “I was under the impression that you had written me no fewer than eleven missives, stating in terms of utmost urgency that you required my immediate attendance.”
“Yes, but I wrote you at least six more after that telling you most expressly not to come!”
He smiled and raised a glass of champagne to his lips. “Yes, that is what decided me. I arrived this afternoon and when I presented myself in Portland Place, your butler informed me you were attending Fanny Parsons’s ball. And since Fanny had sent me a card…”
Lady Norwood stamped a foot. “Well, it is most inconvenient of you. I beg you will return to Yorkshire tomorrow morning without delay. Your presence is not needed here any longer, and to be frank, Hugo, you are very much in the way.”
Her late husband’s half-brother did not seem at all perturbed by her hostility. He shrugged. “You wrote to me that you were in grave distress.”
“Oh! Yes. Well, I was. I have been so frightfully worried about Thomas, you see.”
“About Thomas?” He regarded her with faint disbelief.
“But I have, Hugo, you have no reason to look at me like that.” She pouted winsomely in his direction. “You know what a doting mother I am, and oh! the cares of motherhood.” She sighed soulfully.
Hugo, displaying a lamentable lack of gallantry, did not respond. She peeped a glance at him through her downcast lashes. His expression was cynical.
“Dibs not in tune, eh, Amelia? Too bad. You’ll not get a penny from me, so you may as well give up the play-acting.”
Amelia abandoned her soulful mien. “You are nothing but a penny-pinching clutchfist, Hugo!”
Looking bored, Hugo strolled to the doorway and observed the dancers currently engaged in a cotillion.
His sister-in-law was not fooled by this apparent interest in his fellow guests. She glared at his back. The sight he presented did not at all meet her fastidious standards. His hair was cropped far too short and was not coaxed into a modish style, but simply brushed back from his brow. His shirtpoints were starched, but not high enough to be fashionable; his neckcloth was so plain as to be an affront to any person of taste. His coat fitted him perfectly, but it was of such a dark shade that it made him look almost as if he was in mourning, particularly in combination with his black pantaloons.
The entire effect was too sombre for words, but Amelia was forced to concede that his attire, at least, did not disgrace his family. It was the man himself who was the problem.
Those shoulders…She shuddered. More suited to a labourer than a gentleman. And his skin, which he’d carelessly allowed the sun and wind to darken to an unfashionable brown colour. She glanced at the hands holding the wineglass and sniffed. He could have worn gloves, at least! Those hands—tanned, and covered with nicks and scars—a shameful testament to a youth spent in manual labour.
She averted her gaze from her brother-in-law’s offending person and concentrated on his miserly habits.
“Not everyone enjoys a life of monkish isolation and deprivation, Hugo. We have expenses, Thomas and I. The life of a fashionable person costs a great deal. You—” She cast a disparaging glance over his plain clothing. “You would have no idea of the demands on a gentleman’s purse.”
The faint, disparaging emphasis on the word “gentleman” did not escape Hugo. But these days he was indifferent to it. His mother had been old Lord Norwood’s second wife, an heiress, with the stigma of trade attached to her. And Hugo was only the second son, after all, and with the blood of “dammed tradesmen” in his veins.
Lady Norwood continued, “In any case, as Lord Norwood, Thomas has a position to maintain, and he has every right to the fruits of his inheritance! You have no business denying—”
“Thomas’s inheritance, madam,” interrupted Hugo in a blighting tone, “was a shamefully neglected estate, a crumbling manor house, mortgaged to the hilt and falling apart with disrepair and a mountain of debts to go with them! The fact that Thomas was left anything at all was no thanks to my father and my half-brother, but to whichever far-seeing ancestor of ours established the entail which prevented them gambling away every square inch of land.”
Amelia squirmed, uncomfortably. “Yes, I know, but that is all in the past, after all. And everything has changed now, and you have returned and can—” She broke off as she glanced at him and saw the look in his eye.
She pouted and fiddled with her rings. “Well, I’m sure I am sorry about what happened to you, but it is not as if you suffered too badly—”
“You know nothing about it, madam.”
“Possibly not, but I can see you are very far from purse-pinched, after all. From all I have heard, I’m sure you could pay Thomas’s debts, and mine, and barely even notice it. We are family, after all.” She did not meet his eyes.
His lips thinned, and he inclined his head. “Indeed. Such…belated…family feeling does you honour, I am sure. But I am not going to pay Thomas’s debts. Nor yours.”
“No, you will not assist us in any way—”
“I towed this family from the River Tick, madam, if you care to recall. And I have expressed myself more than willing to teach Thomas how to manage his estate and—”
“Oh, yes—you would make of him a tradesman like yourself!” Amelia sniffed scornfully. “How Thomas would ever find himself a decent bride with the stench of trade about him I declare I don’t know!”
Hugo stared indifferently at the wall above her head.
“If you truly wished to help Thomas, you could settle a sum on him and then you need never worry about us again, but no! You will do nothing so straightforward! I think you enjoy having the power over us that you do!”
Hugo’s brows snapped together. There was an element of truth in her accusation, he realised. Not that he wanted power, but Thomas and Amelia’s constant requests for money gave him some faint feeling of being part of a family. It was a pathetic thing to realise about oneself, he thought.
“It would please me very well if I never had to see you or Thomas again.” Hugo drained his glass of wine. “I